episode_0066

Amor could not easily take his eyes off the sight of Grace leaving. Long after the door closed.

“Grace is a good person.”

“Really?”

“Okay. Everything must be suspicious. I know how your little friend feels, but you can trust and rely on her.”

How did Amor know my identity?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

“It would be right for me to introduce myself first. My name is Amor, I am 526 years old this year.”

526. It was clear that he lived longer than Julias.

It has lived as long as the history of Joseon ── longer than the history of Joseon. How can you lie to someone like that?

A young child like me would definitely look like a lump of blood. My worries cooled only when they reached a critical point. ······When the end comes, you have to accept it.

“You lived a long time.”

What is he saying now? Haven’t you given up too much?

Self-deprecating laughter erupted.

“How long have you been alive?”

“I’m twenty-eight years old.”

Amor’s eyes widened slightly.

I think they were doubtful about my identity.

“······It’s a good time. This is when you become confident in your skills, get married, and have children. Just when life is at its peak.”

Pfft! I laughed.

I couldn’t get married, I didn’t have children, and I didn’t have any skills.

“You have to be young to feel the climax. I’m not even an adult yet.”

“Wrong, young friend. The peak of life and the peak of the body are completely different concepts. It’s too young to see it along the same lines.”

Ugh.

“The climax is the climax. When you’re young, it’s all a good time. Why are you acting like an old person? You weren’t like that before, right?”

“That’s right, an old man. And that’s when, well, I smashed my head.”

Smash your head? Says things you don’t understand.

“Don’t beat yourself up.”

Amor chuckles at my shallow pout.

“I can’t die like other people. So when you want to die, smash your head. If that happens, you won’t be able to remember the old days until your brain recovers.”

Amor playfully taps his head.

It might have suited him when he was in troll form, but it doesn’t suit him that much now.

“When you first saw me, did you forget the past?”

Amor nodded.

“This time, after my head was cut off by your master, the Earth Mother God’s protection restored my body and even my brain recovered quickly. Thanks to you, old memories came back. He’s so blue, I’ve never seen such a scary person in 500 years.”

As expected, I wasn’t the only one who was scared.

“Yes. Sometimes I get scared even when I look at it.”

In some ways, losing memory is no different from death. I felt this keenly when I came here, so I know painfully how precious memories are.

Are you simply tired of life? Or does he have a difficult past like that? To the point of choosing suicide?

“Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“I erased the memory.”

“I hated the world and myself so much that I couldn’t bear it. Don’t stand uncomfortably, sit anywhere.”

Amor picked up the chair next to the bed and held it out to me.

“Thank you.”

Take the chair────.

“Ugh?!”

As soon as I received it, it fell apart along with the chair.

“Oh, no! Why is this so heavy?! What kind of chair—! ···Oh my, ······Hehehe!”

Maybe it was the gravity magic or something, but I got crushed by a chair. I am still a patient. Even so, the sight of me whimpering under a chair made me laugh.

“Please move the chair.”

“Puhuhuh···! What is the reason why you look more sick than me, who died and came back to life?”

There was a long, hearty laugh along with a hearty laugh.

How many seconds did you laugh at being put down like that? Amor, who had been hesitating for a while, reached out and pulled up a chair.

“Thank you. I almost died from being crushed by a chair.”

“It won’t work. You need to drink some more of my blood.”

Who came to get blood?

Now that I have it, I don’t even want to take it, even if it is given to me as a courtesy.

“Are you trying to feed me dirty blood?”

I deliberately made a face and shook my head.

Amor raises the corners of his mouth and opens his eyes round.

“Do you know what my blood is? Precious blood, Precious blood! Have you never heard of Saint Amor?”

What is a saint?

I have never heard of such a suspicious saint.

“Saint? Haan~ I’ve never heard of it before.”

“Huh?”

Amor let out a moan of pleasure and shook his head.

“Ungrateful guys. I mean. Even looking at this, the number of lives saved so far is at least 10 million. How dare you rotten bastards forget me?”

“Don’t say nonsense. What kind of blood did you mix with water, sprinkle in rivers, lakes, and omnipotently as rain?”

Amor nods.

huh?

“That’s right. Grace helped me sprinkle it with rain. I also poured my blood into underground water to revitalize depleted land, and I also poured my blood into lakes and wells in villages plagued by infectious diseases.”

“······.”

He is like an onion.

At the same time, he is a rare kind person.

“Why does such a person hate the world?”

“Little friend, if there was an elixir that would give you energy and make you younger just by eating it, and cure all diseases and prevent you from getting old, what would people do?”

What should I do?

“Anyone would want it. It’s going to be very messed up. Do you think they’ll hold him there so he can’t go anywhere, just take out the blood, and sell it?”

“That’s right. I did. They’re still alive. Those guys are immortals. Eternal monsters created by my carelessness.”

It is said that he was caught and had his blood drawn.

…Isn’t the Immortal thing a legend?

“I’ve heard of it. Immortals can change their appearance at will.”

The unfamiliar man nods his head.

“That’s right. Just like this.”

Amor’s body began to twist.

Bones become crunchy, limbs become longer, and skin becomes thicker. Teeth began to clack and move up between the widened jaw joints.

Body hair begins to thicken, and wrinkles appear on the skin that has stretched and burst. What was created after such deformed distortion was the troll Amor I knew.

“······.”

It was hard to be surprised anymore.

“There are so many demi-humans, why did you turn into a troll? In the first place, what is the relationship between Mother Earth’s blessing and transformation?”

“There is no particular reason. My head got smashed and the first thing I saw was a troll! I don’t even know how I play polymorph.”

You’re probably talking about that friend who looks like me.

“Are you the young friend you mentioned back then? First time seeing a troll?”

A troll who was killed by Hosott.

This was a person that Amor could not forget for nearly a century.

“No, it was that damn father.”

“Did you polymorph into the shape of your friend’s father?”

“No, I polymorphed it according to my friend’s father’s preference.”

Is Amor a crazy person?

“Hehehe… He proposed to me in front of his son, and my friend when I was young said to his father, ‘Daddy, why do you confess to a man?’ It’s like this. Do you know what my friend’s father said to his son back then?”

“What did you say?”

“Son. True love has no gender or age.”

Pfft! A small laugh came out.

A father coming out as gay in front of his child? It’s scary to even imagine. Amor must have been out of breath from laughing, so he let out a sigh mixed with laughter and looked at my face again.

“It was a fun life. I got married and had a son. Every day was fun. My friend’s father attended my wedding and made a fuss.”

“Then quickly shake it off and get up. My family is waiting.”

Amor shakes his head.

“Everyone is dead.”

The laughter disappeared.

···I feel embarrassed and guilty for laughing.

“I had to feel the sorrow of losing my family for 500 years. If life was a comedy, the end was just as tragic.”

As a mere human being, these were words that were difficult to sympathize with.

Preparing for the end is also a path that any person must go through in the end. Any person.

How many endings will there be in 500 years?

“You just have to live so that you don’t regret anything.”

“How should I live so that I don’t regret it?”

Why are you asking me that?

You must find the answer to life yourself.

“If you want to live with your family and friends for a long time, isn’t it okay to share your blood according to Amor’s wishes? We can live together for a long time.”

“You can’t determine other people’s personalities. You have no idea how cruel human nature is.”

Human nature? That’s as much as I know.

Because internet news and news always report unpleasant things. When you come into contact with something like that, you become vaguely aware of it. That people are selfish and dirty.

“I know very well. If strength was the problem, you shouldn’t have used it.”

“No matter how much I smash my head into a pulp, the way to use my blood, my name, and how to polymorph will never leave my head.”

“So, you don’t have to use it.”

Amor shakes his head and looks directly into my eyes.

“What are you going to do if your little friend’s spouse gets old and your little friend stays young forever?”

“······.”

Could I have made a different choice?

“What will you do if your younger friend’s child grows older faster than your younger friend, and your wife asks you to save the child? ‘father. ‘I don’t want to die yet.’ When you hear that, do you think you have a choice?”

A calm voice struck my ear.

···Save it. There is no choice.

“What are you going to do if your little friend’s neighbor, a person from afar, a noble, a king, or an emperor demands your little friend’s blood? What if the little friend’s family quit their jobs and started selling the little friend’s blood?”

This is a place where there is no state-of-the-art hospital.

Therefore, the interest of subhumans in health is incomparable to that of Earth. Right now, my father and Jule have been overly concerned about my health. Isn’t interest in health widespread even on Earth, where medical science has advanced dozens of times?

“What if bandits attack the village targeting your little friend? What if someone unexpectedly died trying to protect their little friend?”

“It’s a curse.”

“Okay. It’s a curse.”

Amor, who returned to his human form, leaned back on the pillow and looked into space. There is no emotion whatsoever in his calm voice and eyes.

Evenly, as if accepted.

“Polymorph is not omnipotent. It’s funny, but it can only turn into someone’s ‘ideal’, including me. In that sense, I was a human being no better than a devil.”

There was a clear correlation between ‘abnormality’, immortality, and recovery.

Aging is something that all living things want to avoid the most. Therefore, you must not be old.

“My son was the first to leave home. He disappeared without saying he was going. The wife was tired of the stares of the villagers. After a while, he left my side just like my son.”

“You’re cruel.”

“No. It was me who couldn’t care about those two. Thanks to the abuse of my power, both of their lives were ruined. Do you know when I realized that?”

Why is it Amor’s fault?

···Am I thinking too shallowly?

” I found out when I was left alone at home after my family left. It was only after I had no one to lean on that I realized what I had done when I saw the lonely loneliness I felt and the cold eyes of the village people.”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“Little friend, the world is not lived through mindset. The only thing that is revealed on the outside is your actions.”

It is a truth so cold that it makes your heart ache.

Amor is right. The world does not revolve around mindset, but through action. Isn’t that why ‘stupid and diligent’ people are so criticized?

“Enlightenment is always slow. Humans learn from failure. To give up my life, I found a very high cliff and jumped off. I couldn’t bear that I had ruined the life of the most precious person to me and that they had given up on me.”

My head must have been broken at that time.

“I lost my memory at that time. After that, I always followed the same procedure. In my fifth life, I was so angry that I had a bad mind. Then, an immortal monster called Immortal was created, and that led me to meet Grace.”

Grace? Dragonia?

“Why does Grace suddenly appear?”

” Since immortal monsters were running rampant among the people, it was suspected that it was magic, so an investigator came out. If it weren’t for Grace, I’d still be trapped in the basement bleeding out.”

“······.”

You were betrayed and imprisoned.

A person who lives eternal life has to spend his whole life locked in a basement and being extorted? This is the ending I didn’t want to think about the most.

“After that, we traveled around the world together. It was Grace’s advice not to create something precious and not to settle down. We built the world together. Places where there is a drought, places where infectious diseases are rampant, places where war breaks out…”

Is that Dragonia?

If you look at what he does, he just looks like a machine.

“I don’t think Grace would recommend that.”

“The magic tower’s genius wandered with me for decades. After returning to the Magic Tower, all but the most minimal emotions were suppressed by the dragon.”

······Suppressed emotions?

I wondered if that was possible, but it seems possible.

“I thought all Horus’ dragonias were like that.”

Amor frowns.

However, the corners of the mouth are raised.

“It’s scary to even think about it. Where is that where people live?”

“···Is that so?”

Because of all this, I had assumed that Yulias hated Dragonia. Amor, who was laughing dryly, eventually caught his breath.

“Even though Grace returned to the Magic Tower, I didn’t stop my work. Now that I have a hobby, should I call it vicarious satisfaction?”

“What vicarious satisfaction?”

“Seeing people smiling or being friendly with their families. Seeing that made me feel at ease.”

Vicarious satisfaction.

It is established because you want it.

“You wanted to settle down.”

“That’s right. I realized this less than a year after Grace left. So 130 years ago in the South I crushed my head and started a new life.”

“Why did it have to be in the south? Civilization is so far behind compared to the central or northern regions.”

I felt deprived just by staying at the rest area or in this place. That is what advanced civilization was like.

“But it is also a place where the concept of money is rarest. I thought people wouldn’t be greedy for money here. I thought I could start a new life.”

At least the Amor I saw for the first time was not alone.

I knew people and belonged to groups. When I think back to when I first saw him, his social status didn’t seem to be bad. Settlement was successful.

“Is this life going well?”

“No.”

“No? It seemed like you had a lot of friends.”

“War broke out. And I foolishly went around showing off my power by making friends with people. It was natural that Yunaira would notice. I couldn’t explain because I couldn’t communicate, and my friend was cut into pieces in front of me. At that time, I was hiding in the ground and just watching.”

The rumor has spread.

How are albino black people treated in Africa? They cut off their limbs and run away, rape them, or eat them. Same human! Due to this superstition, the ransom price of a child reaches hundreds of millions, to the point where people sell their own children to human hunters.

In the same vein, the southern demihumans began to look to troll blood for its supernatural properties. Moreover, this is a world where superstitions exist, and I also encountered Sorshei.

“They carefully chopped up my friend and took his blood.”

This is what Hosott said about killing his friend by cutting him into pieces. It wasn’t dead, it was eaten.

“There is no way a troll has the power of the Earth Mother God. Because the language was different, I couldn’t make them understand. Thousands of trolls died in the South for no reason. because of me! The rift between Yunaira and the trolls only deepened.”

Eventually, Amor’s eyes turned to me.

“Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

“I don’t know.”

Amor looks at me with eager eyes.

“You… Because only you can kill me.”